


Five Times Lian Knew Uncle Nightwing Loved Her

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Childhood Sexual Abuse, Fluff, Gen, Vomit mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-07
Updated: 2006-09-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 20:43:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14880887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: See Title.





	Five Times Lian Knew Uncle Nightwing Loved Her

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for 100 women. 
> 
> Anyway, this takes place during the Winick/Devin Grayson years. So Dick comes across as a dick here because he was not written very well. It was me trying to do damage control because the people getting paid didn't want to.

**Prompt: Insides**  
Lian really hated throwing up.

But her stomach didn't seem to care too much, because she'd been throwing up for hours - at least, she thought it was hours, but she wasn't very good at telling time yet. All she knew was that she'd missed _the entire episode_ of _The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy_ and that was her favorite cartoon. Being sick really, really sucked.

"Here," Uncle Dick said, handing her a glass of water. "Gargle with this for a minute and then spit it out into the toilet. That will help with the nasty taste in your mouth."

Uncle Dick was really smart, so Lian did what he told her to do. The first time helped, but not quite enough, so she gargled twice before handing the cup back to him. Uncle Dick took the cup and wiped her mouth with a cool washcloth. Lian didn't like having her mouth washed - she was too old for that, but she figured he was probably washing away the throw up, so she let him.

"Feel any better?" he asked.

"No. My _insides_ hurt really bad and my throat feels itchy."

"Do you want me to wake your Daddy for you?"

Lian really did, but her daddy was sicker than she was. "No. He needs to rest, Uncle Dick."

Uncle Dick smiled at her and nodded. Lian was really glad he was here - if it had been any of her other aunts or uncles, they would have insisted on waking up Daddy because she was sick. But Uncle Dick wanted to take care of both of them, and Lian knew that meant he would let Daddy sleep.

"Do you want to try to watch some more TV?" Uncle Dick asked. "I have a _Big Bear 2_ that has your name on it."

Lian shook her head, and maybe she shook it a little too fast, because all of the sudden she felt like she might fall down. She almost did, but Uncle Dick caught her and pulled her onto his lap. "I'm still sick, Uncle Dick. I don't want to throw up on the living room floor. I'm _too old_ for that."

"Okay then." Uncle Dick pulled her closer and rubbed the top of her head. She was probably too old for that, too, but it felt kinda nice, so Lian didn't say anything. "We'll just wait here, then, until your insides start to feel better."

"What if they start to feel _worse?"_

__"I'll be here with you, either way."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
**Prompt: Kiss**  
On the day that Superboy saved Andrew from falling off the roof of the building he'd climbed onto in order to get their basket ball back, Lian was so happy that she threw her arms around the superhero and gave him the best kiss she'd ever given anyone on the cheek. Superboy's face had been the color of the red on his T-shirt when she'd pulled away and thanked him, and Lian decided that he was the cutest boy she'd ever seen.

In fact, he was the only cute boy she'd ever seen. She didn't really care for the boys in her class - they were all pretty dumb. So she'd decided at that point that she was definitely going to marry Superboy someday.

Daddy didn't like that plan a whole lot. In fact, not a whole lot of people seemed to like that plan. Gran'pa Ollie told her she "had a few years" before she had to make that decision, Aunt Dinah had kissed her head and told her that Superboy was a little too old for her, Aunt Donna had suggested that she marry _Andrew_ instead. Most everyone else had rolled their eyes, in the way that they did when they thought she was too little to understand something.

But when she told Uncle Dick her plans, he had merely smiled at her and confessed in a low whisper, "When I was just a little older than you, I wanted to marry Superman."

"Marry?"

"Well. . .maybe not marry. But . . .date. Definitely date."

"Well. . .Superman is awfully nice, but he's not as cute as Superboy."

"Oh. . .of course not."

Uncle Dick was the nicest uncle she had, Lian was pretty sure. "And Uncle Dick? I'm glad you didn't marry Superman. If you had, you wouldn't have fallen in love with my daddy. . . And you probably wouldn't be my uncle."

She received a hug from her Uncle. "My life would be pretty miserable without the two of you in it."

"Even if you were married to Superman?"

"Even if I was married to Superman."

"Well, I think _I'll_ be pretty happy married to Superboy. I won't be miserable at all."

"Just remember to invite me to the wedding."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
**Prompt: Fear**  
When strong arms shook her awake from her nightmare, Lian expected it to be her daddy. But when she opened her eyes, it was neither the man that had hurt her in her dreams nor her daddy. It was Uncle Dick.

Before he'd left, the last time, it wouldn't have been strange at all for Uncle Dick to be in the house with them. But he and Daddy had broken up and Uncle Dick had left, just like Aunt Donna had. Lian wanted to hate him for that, and she planned to, later, because it had hurt so very badly when Uncle Dick had left them.

Right now, the dream was still too real, and she was too afraid to do anything but crawl into the arms that had woken her. She clung tightly to his neck, and tried not to think of the bad man in her dream when Uncle Dick rubbed her back.

"Do you want to tell me about your dream?"

"You didn't get there in time. You and Daddy . . .the bad man took me away."

"I know how scary that must have been for you, Lian."

"No you _don't._ You don't know anything because you. . .you left us. You're probably going to leave us again."

"I know how scary that dream is because I have the same nightmare every night, Lian." His voice wobbled the way Lian's did when she was trying not to cry. Lian had never seen Uncle Dick cry before, but when he tilted her face up to look at his, there were tears in his eyes. "I'm so very, very sorry that I wasn't here to save you . . . I will _never_ leave you again. I _promise."_

__She was still angry at him, but she hugged him tighter.

And she believed his promise.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
**Prompt: Paint**  
Lian _loved_ mornings. Daddy liked to sleep in, which meant that she had Uncle Dick all to herself. . . and Uncle Dick would pretty much do whatever she wanted to do. Well, he wouldn't eat brownies for breakfast, or throw an egg at dumb old Mrs. Thompson's car, but other than that. . .

On this particular Tuesday morning, Lian wanted to finger paint, because Andrew said it was something he did with his _mommy_ a lot. Lian couldn't finger paint with her mommy, because of the evil, and Andrew said that finger painting wasn't a _daddy_ activity, but she could definitely finger paint with Uncle Dick. Stupid old Andrew hadn't said anything at all about finger painting not being an _Uncle Dick_ activity.

"When I was in the circus, there was a guy named Tom that would paint all of our faces," Uncle Dick informed her. On their mornings together, Uncle Dick told her lots of really cool stuff like that, and lots of times it had to do with the circus. Aunt Donna had said once that Uncle Dick didn't talk about the circus a lot, and Aunt Donna didn't lie, so Lian figured their morning talks were secrets. Lian rather liked having secrets with Uncle Dick.

"What did he paint on your face?" Lian asked as she tried to figure out how to give Cerdian white hair on white paper.

"Anything we wanted. Sometimes he'd paint our faces to look like cats. . .sometimes he'd do tribal art. . .sometimes he'd paint us up to look like mimes." Uncle Nightwing looked up from his painting and grinned. "That used to confuse the tourists a lot, when we would _talk."_

__Lian smiled back at him, until she got a good look at the picture he was painting. "Why are you painting that, Uncle Dick?"

"Well, these are members of my family, Lian," he answered.

She looked at the painting again and frowned. There was a Batman, _two_ Robins, a Nightwing, and a Batgirl. . .but no one else. "Where'm I? And where's Daddy?"

In years to come, Lian would look back on that memory and know exactly why they hadn' t been included in that picture. But for now, she was greatly relieved when Uncle Dick reached to his left and handed her an entirely different picture - one that had only Daddy, Uncle Dick, and her.

"I wouldn't share you with my Bat-family," Uncle Dick said seriously. "You two are all mine."

"And you're _all ours,"_ Lian said forcefully, still not entirely pleased with the Bat-family painting.

"Absolutely," Uncle Dick swore. "Want me to paint your face?"

Her displeasure at the Bat-family momentarily forgotten, Lian abandoned her Titan-family painting and sat cross-legged in front of Uncle Dick. She let him paint her face, even though it tickled.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

  
**Prompt: Jewelry**  
On the day _before_ Lian's seventh birthday, she felt very grown-up. No one treated her very much like a grown-up, but Lian was very hopeful that would change once she _actually_ turned seven.

On the day _of_ Lian's seventh birthday, she received the same little kid toys that she'd always gotten on her birthday. No one treated any different than they had the day before, when she'd only been six.

On the day _after_ Lian's seventh birthday, she was totally depressed about the whole thing. Clearly, her whole family was going to treat her like she was a baby forever - including Gran'pa Ollie, who seemed to think she was _a baby._ Only _babies_ watched Barney and needed to use the potty _every night at eleven_ before they went to bed.

Lian was really sick of everyone thinking she was a baby. But there wasn't anything she could do about it other than go to the potty and then go to sleep.

Life really was _tragically_ unfair.

Lian had just crawled into the bed when Gran'pa Ollie stuck his head in her room. Geez, he didn't even _knock._ She had to knock on _his_ room before she went in, even if she'd had a really bad dream. "Hey, squirt? I almost forgot to tell you. This package came for you in the mail today."

A package in the mail was a very grown up sort of thing to have gotten, so Lian sat up anxiously and reached out her hands to take the package. "Who do you think it's from?" she asked as she started to unwrap the brown paper.

Gran'pa Ollie held up a white envelope, like the ones that went with birthday cards. "This came with it. Want me to read it to you?"

Lian frowned. "I can read it by myself, Gran'pa Ollie."

"Ah, my mistake. Let me know if you need any help."

Lian only needed help twice, because "necklace" and "centuries" were big words.

_Dear Lian,_

_Happy 7th birthday, sweetie. I'm sorry I couldn't be there for your party, but I hope you like your present.  
This necklace belonged to my mother - it's one of the few things of hers I still have. It's been in my family for centuries and I always planned on giving it to you. I think you're finally old enough to take good care of it now._

_Love you,  
Uncle Dick. _

But when she was done reading the card she frowned up at Gran'pa Ollie. "If you don't like someone anymore, do you think it's okay to accept gifts from them?" she asked.

"Well, sure," he answered. "They might as well be good for something, right?"

Lian didn't think that was the same advice that her daddy would have given, but he was off with the Justice League, so Lian decided to take Gran'pa Ollie's advice anyway. She was glad she had, because the necklace really was beautiful. It was gold, and had a little heart-shaped locket on its chain.

"Wow. Somebody must like you an awful lot to give you such nice presents, squirt."

Lian scowled at the necklace and would have thrown it into the trash can _right then,_ if it hadn't been in Uncle Dick's family for _centuries._ She was pretty sure that mean it was too special to be thrown away. "No he doesn't," she informed Gran'pa Ollie. "If he cared, he wouldn't have _left_ in the first place. And he would have been here for my party. And his _nice present_ wouldn't have been _late_."

"Squirt. . . " Gran'pa Ollie ruffled her hair and rubbed the hair on his chin for a long time before he spoke again. "Sometimes people do stupid things to the people they love without meaning to."

"Why?"

"Because they're stupid. And they should know better, but all they can do is spend the rest of their lives feeling stupid for hurting that person and trying, at every opportunity to make up for the mistake they wish they could undo."

Lian frowned. "You're saying you think I should keep the necklace?"

"That'd be a good start. Maybe you could work up to not hating Uncle Dick, too."

"Maybe. I'll think about it while I sleep." She handed the necklace to Gran'pa Ollie and let him put it on her dresser. Maybe in the morning she'd wear it. It was a very pretty necklace, and she was kind of tired of being mad at Uncle Dick anyway.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  



End file.
